Having quitted Smeraldina, with the loftiest airs of condescension, they

set forth upon their travels. Getting lost in the wilderness, it begins

to dawn upon them that self-love is one of the cardinal facts of human

nature, to which even the most philosophical characters, when threatened

with death by cold and famine, are subject. In the midst of these

reflections, they are terrified with an earthquake and sudden darkness.

A statue appears walking toward them, who informs them that he too was

once a miserable philosopher, who petrified his own humanity and that of

others by perverse principles analogous to those which have infected

them. Consequently, he was doomed to be a statue, lying lifeless and

inert among the rubbish of neglected things, until one of Renzo's and

Barbarina's ancestors rescued him from filth and set him up in a garden

of the city. This benefit he now means to repay by watching over the

twins. First of all, he ardently desires to save them from the

petrifaction which awaits all souls made frigid by a false philosophy.

Next, he tells them that, though he knows the secret of their parentage,

he may not reveal it. They have a dreadful doom impending over them; and

their eventual happiness can only be secured by the assistance of the

Green Bird. His own name in the world was Calmon; and he has now become

the King of Images:[84]--

"Molti viventi

Sono forse più statue, ch'io non sono.

Tu proverai qual forza abbia una statua,

E come simulacro un uom diventi."

Then Calmon gives the twins a stone. They are to return to the city, and

Barbarina is to throw the stone down before the royal palace. They will

immediately become rich. In any great disaster, let them call on Calmon.

In this way Gozzi allegorises his own prejudice against the cold and

shallow theories of society, which were infiltrating Italy from France.

The second act reveals Tartaglia. He is the victim of remorse, haunted

by the memory of Ninetta, whom he buried alive in a hole beneath the

scullery-sink. There is the floor on which she used to walk. There is

the kitchen where she fluttered in the form of a dove. "O spirit of

Ninetta, where art thou?" Tartaglia preserves the burlesque note of his

Mask. Only one friend remains to him, his old henchman Truffaldino; but

Truffaldino has become a pork-butcher, and forgotten him. Truffaldino at

this juncture appears. He too gives himself philosophical airs, without

concealing his gross appetites and greedy love of self. Tartaglia kicks

him out of doors, and then passes to a scene of vituperation against his

wicked mother, Tartagliona, the Queen of Tarocchi,[85] who has been the

cause of all his misery. Tartagliona shows the worst side of her coarse

malignant nature in the ensuing altercation, and departs vowing

vengeance.

Her only consolation is that she is beloved by Brighella, the most

famous poet of the age:[86]--

"Non mancano

In me vezzi, e lusinghe, ond' al mio fianco

Fedel sia sempre. Ah, non vorrei, che alfine

Le mie finezze a lui, negli altri amanti

Destasser gelosia."

A new scene introduces Renzo and Barbarina. They have returned to the

city, and are standing in front of the palace. Renzo begs his sister to

throw the magic stone. Barbarina reminds him that if they become rich,

all will be over with their philosophy. At last he persuades her to

throw it, and she does so, bidding herself be mindful that a wretched

pebble is the source of her future magnificence. In a moment a gorgeous

palace rises, fronting the royal dwelling. Renzo's and Barbarina's rags

are exchanged for splendid raiment. Moorish servants issue from the

great gates with torches, and welcome their princely masters.

No sooner have the twins taken up their abode in this magic palace, than

they begin to act like _parvenus_ and _nouveaux riches._ Every folly,

vanity, and false desire enters their heads. Their philosophy is

forgotten. Brighella, in his character of seer, divines, meanwhile, that

their presence threatens danger to the person of Tartagliona. He

therefore endeavours to persuade the Queen to make her will in his

favour. She very sensibly refuses, and bids him do all in his power to

prolong the life of one whom he adores. He is obliged to meet her

wishes, and divulges a plan whereby the twins shall be destroyed. The

fairy Serpentina, he reminds her, owns apples which sing, and golden

water which plays and dances. The adventure of stealing these magical

objects involves the greatest peril. Certainly Barbarina will be ruined

if she longs to have them. Accordingly, when she appears at the window

of her palace, Tartagliona from the opposite balcony is to repeat these

rhymes:[87]--

"Voi siete bella assai; ma più bella sareste,

S'un de'pomi, che cantano, in una mano areste.

* * * * *

Figlia voi siete bella; ma più bella sareste,

S'acqua, che suona e balla, nell'altra mano areste."

The scene now changes to the interior of the palace of the twins.

Barbarina is contemplating her charms in the looking-glass, when

Smeraldina suddenly enters, full of affection. She has heard of the good

fortune of her foundlings, and forgetting their recent ill-treatment of

her, has come to congratulate them. Barbarina exclaims against her

rudeness, calls the servants, throws a purse of gold at her

foster-mother, and bids her depart. Smeraldina, who cannot stifle her

affection for the ungrateful girl, changes tone, and humbly asks to be

allowed to stay and serve her. Barbarina, much to her own surprise,

feels touched by this display of feeling, and magnanimously allows the

good woman to remain as a menial. Smeraldina's soliloquy at the end of

the scene reveals her sound sense no less than her warm heart:[88]

"Questa è quella filosofa, che andava

Ieri per legna al bosco, ed oggi! ... basta ...

Seco volea restar, perchè l'adoro,

E seco resto alfin; del tacer poi

Ci proveremo; ma non sarà nulla.

Non la conosco più. Quanta superbia!

Che diavol l'ha arrichita in questa forma?

Io non vorrei, che questa frasconcella ...

Forse qualche milord ... ma saprò tutto."

{_Entra._

Next we have Renzo. He has fallen desperately in love with a beautiful

statue which he found in the garden of the palace. Truffaldino enters,

frankly confesses that he has come to live at ease with his quondam

foster-child, professes himself a true sage, and expounds the cynical

philosophy of interested motives. Renzo cannot resist laughing at the

knave's candour, but is not yet disposed to bear his insolence.

Truffaldino sees that he must alter his tone. So he begins to whine and

flatter. Renzo is softened, and consents to keep him as a buffoon. His

cynicism and his hyperbolical adulation will serve to make the hours

pass pleasantly.

Tartaglia and Pantalone appear upon the royal balcony. Barbarina enters

on the other side, and Tartaglia falls head over ears in love with her

at first sight. The scene is carried out with much burlesque humour,

until Tartagliona and Brighella join the group below. Tartagliona utters

the magic verses, and Barbarina becomes madly bent upon the apples which

sing and the water which plays and dances. Renzo, touched by his

sister's despair, agrees to attempt the adventure; but before he goes,

he gives her a dagger. So long as this is bright, he will be alive. If

it drops blood, that is a sign that her brother has died in the attempt.

A scene between Ninetta in her living tomb and the Green Bird who brings

her food, is here interpolated, in order to prepare the audience for

what ensues.

Renzo and Truffaldino arrive at Serpentina's garden, and fail in their

adventure. Then Renzo calls on Calmon, who appears, and summons a band

of statues--the female figure on the fountain at Treviso and the Moors

of the Campo de'Mori at Venice[89]--to his aid. By their assistance a

singing apple is procured, and some of the dancing water is bottled in

a phial. But Calmon and his band of statues remind Renzo that he is in

duty bound to be grateful. Calmon lacks his nose; the fountain of

Treviso's breasts are injured; the Moors have, each of them, some broken

limb. Renzo must undertake to restore them properly, and all will go

well with him.

Renzo promises; but he very soon forgets the shattered statues. Lost in

admiration before the image of beautiful Pompea, he spends his days in

wooing her. At length Pompea finds her voice, and confides to him her

previous experience. She was the daughter of a great Italian prince, the

prince of a corrupt but mighty city; and she has now become an idol

through her self-idolatry.

At this juncture enters Truffaldino with exciting news. Tartaglia has

made a declaration of his love through Pantalone to Barbarina. She

wavers between the splendid prospects of a royal match and the affection

which she feels for the Green Bird, her lover and consoler in their days

of poverty. Meanwhile Tartagliona breaks negotiations off by declaring

that Barbarina must bring the Green Bird as dower; else she can never be

Tartaglia's bride. At this announcement Barbarina falls into hysterics,

kicking Pantalone downstairs, and screaming out that nothing but the

Green Bird will satisfy her. Truffaldino, partly out of compassion for

Barbarina's state, partly from a sense of modesty, leaves her presence.

He arrives to rouse his master to a sense of the situation. This is no

time to make platonic love to statues, &c.

Renzo replies that he is quite ready to attempt the adventure of the

Green Bird. He knows from Calmon that the bird alone is capable of

solving the problem of his own parentage, and also of evoking Pompea

from her marble immobility. Consequently he has a strong personal

interest in the capture of the bird; and his sister's troubles are an

additional reason why he should no longer delay. With Truffaldino for

his squire, he will ride forth into the forest of the Goblin, who holds

the bird in meshes of diabolical enchantments. Let Smeraldina remind his

sister that the dagger which he gave her will assure her of his good or

evil fortune in the perilous essay.

While Renzo is on his journey, Barbarina keeps continually gazing on the

dagger. It does not cease to shine. But Smeraldina and the speaking

statue of Pompea work upon her feelings by suggesting the perils her

brother is undergoing, to which her own vanity has exposed him. Moved at

last by simple human sympathy, she finds the situation intolerable, and

resolves to follow Renzo to the place of danger. It is this return to

nature which saves her, and brings about a happy catastrophe. Barbarina

renounces her wish to wed Tartaglia, and thinks only of arresting Renzo

in his dangerous course. She sets off with Smeraldina; and the magic

palace is left desolate, in mourning, all its splendour gone.

Renzo and Truffaldino have now reached the Goblin's hill, where the

Green Bird is seen upon a perch, chained by the leg. Trying to capture

him, Renzo turns into a statue; and there is a whole gathering of

similar statues in the place--men who essayed the same adventure, and

failed.

Barbarina and _Smeraldina_ arrive at the scene of action. The dagger

drops blood. Barbarina's mask of false philosophy and selfish vanity

drops off. She becomes a simple woman, filled with repentance and

anguish for her brother who is dead. She flings herself upon the bosom

of poor Smeraldina, whom she had so villainously treated. At this

juncture, when all seems lost, Calmon appears, and reads her a sound

moral lecture. Then he points to a scroll before her feet, and instructs

her what she has to do. She must walk up to within a hair's-breadth--no

more and no less--of the bird, and take good heed that he does not utter

a sound before she has read aloud the words inscribed upon the scroll.

If she succeeds in this feat, all may yet come right. There is a

breathless moment, during which Barbarina executes what Calmon told her.

The bird is captured, and begins to talk. Let her take a feather from

his tail. That will restore the statues to life.

The drama is quickly wound up. By means of the bird's tail-feather,

Renzo and Pompea are made happy lovers. Ninetta returns from her hole.

Tartagliona is changed into a tortoise, and Brighella into a donkey. The

Green Bird resumes his form as King of Terradombra and plights his faith

to Barbarina. Tartaglia recognises his lost son and daughter, and is

fain to be contented with the resuscitated wife whom he had so wantonly

condemned to a lingering death.

* * * * *

This analysis, if any one takes the trouble to read it, will suffice to

show the sprightliness of Gozzi's invention, and also the essential

weakness of his artistic method. The magic and the transformations at

the close are mechanical. The fate of the Green Bird is connected by no

proper motive with the fate of Tartaglia and the twins. Calmon and the

statues, allegorically useful, are in like manner independent of the

main dramatic action. Ninetta's doom is atrocious. Tartaglia is only

saved from being disgusting by his burlesque absurdity.

XI.

In the spring of 1762, having exhibited _Le Tre Melarancie_, _Il Corvo_,

_Il Rè Cervo_, and _Turandot_, Gozzi proved that he had won the game

against Chiari and Goldoni. Sacchi's company removed from the theatre at

S. Samuele to a more commodious house at S. Angelo. Chiari retired to

his native city, Brescia, and left off writing for the stage. Goldoni

departed for Paris. None of Goldoni's biographers deny that he took this

step in consequence of Gozzi's triumph. In his own Memoirs he omitted

all references to the literary quarrels of the years 1756-62; and he

gives excellent reasons, quite independent of Gozzi, for his setting off

to seek fortune in the French capital. Certainly, the last piece he

presented to the Venetian public, _Una delle ultime sere di Carnovale_,

was received with enthusiasm. "It closed the theatrical year of 1761,"

he says;[90] "and the evening of Shrove Tuesday brought me an ovation.

The theatre rang with thunders of applause, among which could be

distinguished these farewells: _A happy journey! Come back to us! Be

sure you do not fail to do so!_ I confess that I was touched to tears."

Yet the simultaneous retirement of both Chiari and Goldoni at this

critical moment justifies our believing that the latter judged it

expedient to leave Venice after the revolution effected by Gozzi. He did

so without ill-will on either side. Count Gasparo Gozzi, Carlo's

brother, and a distinguished member of the Granelleschi, undertook the

charge of seeing a new edition of Goldoni's plays through the press in

his absence.

For some years after this event, Carlo Gozzi and Sacchi's company had

the theatres of Venice pretty much at their own disposal. But the

success of the _Fiabe_ was ephemeral. Before their author's death, he

saw his own dramatic novelties cast into the shade and Goldoni's

realistic comedies restored to favour. A poet of such eminence as

Goethe, surveying all things Italian with curiosity in 1786, paid a

well-considered tribute to Gozzi's sympathy with the Venetian public,

praised the energy and nature of the _Commedia dell' Arte_, but reserved

his highest panegyric for a representation of Goldoni's _Baruffe

Chiozzote_ at the theatre of S. Luca.[91] "At last I am able to say that

I have seen a comedy," are the emphatic words with which Goethe opens a

detailed description of this piece.

In the course of the last hundred years, Goldoni has secured a signal

and irreversible victory over his rival. One of the best theatres at

Venice is called by his name. His house is pointed out by gondoliers to

tourists. His statue stands almost within sight of the Rialto on the

Campo S. Bartolommeo, where people most do congregate. His comedies are

repeatedly given by companies of celebrated actors. Gozzi's _Fiabe_ have

been relegated to the marionette stages, where some of their _scenari_

in a mutilated form may still be seen. There exist no memorials to his

fame in Venice. Not even a tablet with the words _Qui nacque Carlo

Gozzi_ is to be found upon the ancient palace at S. Cassiano. The

sacristan of the church, where his dust is gathered to his fathers,

cannot point to the Gozzi vault.

The vicissitudes of Gozzi's reputation turn upon the different views

which have been taken of his merits in relation to Goldoni. In Italy the

balance of opinion tends to sink against him. Baretti, that fiery member

of Sam Johnson's club, the fierce opponent of Goldoni, pronounced at

first in Gozzi's favour, lamented that he could not bring Garrick to one

of his plays, proposed to translate the _Fiabe_ into English, and swore

that Gozzi stood next to Shakespeare in dramatic genius. But when

Baretti read the _Fiabe_ in print, he declaimed against the buffooneries

of the Masks, and dropped his enthusiasm. Tommasei found no words too

strong to express his contempt for a writer whose genius he denied, and

whose character inspired him with repugnance. Tommasei was a champion of

Goldoni. Omitting further details, it is enough to say that Italy has

elected to ignore Gozzi and to deify Goldoni. The causes are not far to

seek. Gozzi's vogue depended partly upon controversy and satire. It was

confined to the locality of Venice. His plays required the co-operation

of the Masks; and these expired in his own lifetime. Moreover, they

appealed to a rare combination of sensibilities, romantic and humorous,

which is not common in Italy. Lastly, for their proper mounting on the

stage, they demanded an expenditure of ingenuity and money, which their

fading popularity prohibited. Goldoni, on the other hand, suited the

temper of the growing age by his simplicity, his truth to nature, his

realism, and the freshness of eternal youth which lends charm to the

facile productions of his amiable genius. His comedies can be put upon

the stage without the least difficulty; and they afford scope for the

display of varied talents in actors of several descriptions.

In Germany Gozzi enjoyed wide posthumous reputation, not as a playwright

with the public, but as a poet among men of letters. He was early

chosen, during the _Sturm und Drang_ period, to perform the part of

champion of Romantic against Classical forms of art. How mistaken this

view of Gozzi really is, I have attempted to prove. Yet if critics

ignore what Gozzi wrote about the origin of his _Fiabe_, and keep out of

sight his intentions while composing them--if they only regard the

printed plays--it is not difficult to make him assume this false

position. Franz A. C. Werthes translated the _Fiabe_ into German so

early as 1777-79, and published them at Bern. No less than twelve

separate versions of selected plays have since appeared, up to the date

1877.[92] Among these may be mentioned Schiller's _Turandot_, which was

executed from the translation of Werthes, and a reproduction of _I

Pitocchi Fortunati_ by Paul Heyse. Schlegel introduced the _Fiabe_ to

public notice, emphasising their value as specimens of the Romantic

style, and connecting them with the indigenous art of Italy. Hoffmann

declared his enthusiasm for Gozzi; and if he did not borrow motives from

the _Fiabe_ and the _Memoirs_ for his own fantastic productions, he

undoubtedly regarded their author as a genius of the same species as

himself. Wagner, I may parenthetically observe, based one of his

earliest operatic productions on _La Donna Serpente_. It was composed in

1833, and was first exhibited at Munich in 1888. To follow the several

steps by which Gozzi came to be regarded in Germany as a Romanticist,

snuffed out by the Revolution, would lead me beyond the limits of this

introduction. I suspect that he was known there mainly in the

translation of Werthes, and that his works were quarried as a mine of

motives by writers of romantic tendencies, who lacked invention. There

is a pocket edition of the _Fiabe_ in Italian, 3 vols., published by

Hitzig, 1808.

The German conception of Gozzi as a Romantic poet of the purest water

spread to France. It took the French imagination just when the Romantic

movement was at its height. Philarète Chasles treated his works from the

point of view of Spanish dramatic literature. Paul de Musset pounced

upon the Memoirs, condensed them into a small volume with considerable

literary ability, and so ingeniously manipulated their text in the

process as to create the illusion that Gozzi had pronounced himself to

be in fact what his German admirers found in him. This clever travesty

of Gozzi's autobiography presented him to the world as the victim of

sprites, the creature of his own inventions, the plaything of

superstition, instead of the caustic, practical, sometimes dissembling,

and often sinister, man of thwarted passion, violent caprice, hard head,

and conservative heart, who will presently be revealed in my version of

the Memoirs. I do not blame Paul de Musset for his literary escapade. I

understand his motive, and appreciate the joke. He wanted, at one and

the same time, to place Gozzi, as the Germans had already placed him,

among the fathers of Romanticism, and also to construct a telling novel

of adventure out of the copious materials furnished by the Memoirs. But,

by so doing, Paul de Musset misled writers who had no access to the sole

edition of Gozzi's _Memorie_, or who were perhaps too careless to seek

this document out. Among these I may mention M. Paul Royer, the

translator of five of Gozzi's _Fiabe_ into French,[93] and Vernon Lee,

the talented authoress of a deservedly popular book entitled _Studies of

the Eighteenth Century in Italy_.[94] Both of these distinguished

writers have fallen into the trap laid for them by Paul de Musset, and

have accepted a false conception of the man who forms the subject of

these volumes.

Gozzi, who plumed himself upon his Democritean philosophy of laughter,

his Stoic-Epicurean acceptance of every wayward stroke of fortune, would

have been the first to smile sardonically, yet not without a touch of

benignant humour, upon the mask he has been made to wear by Germans and

by Frenchmen. English critics, with the exception of Vernon Lee, have

had little or nothing to do with him up to this date.[95] Let the man

speak for himself in the account of his own life, which I now for the

first time present to the multitude of English readers.

_August 8, 1888._

CARLO GOZZI.

I.

_My Pedigree and Birth._

There are people foolish enough to make every family history the object

of their ridicule and satire. For the sake of wits of this sort I shall

give a short but truthful account of my ancestry, in order that they may

have something to quiz.

Our stock springs in the fourteenth century from a certain Pezòlo

de'Gozzi. This is proved by an authentic genealogy, which we possess;

the authority of which has never been disputed, and which has been

accepted as evidence in law-courts, although it is but a dusty document,

worm-eaten and be-cobwebbed, not framed in gold or hung against the

wall. Since I am no Spaniard, I never applied to any genealogist to

discover a more ancient origin for our race. There are historical works,

however, which derive us from the family de'Gozze, extant at the present

epoch in Ragusa, and original settlers of that venerable republic. The

chronicles of Bergamo relate that the aforesaid Pezòlo de'Gozzi was a

man of weight and substance in the district of Alzano, and that he won

the gratitude of the most serene Republic of Venice for having

imperilled his property and person against the Milanese in order to

preserve that district for her invincible and clement rule. His

descendants held office as ambassadors and podestàs for the city of

Bergamo, which proves that they were members of its Council; while two

privileges of the sixteenth century show that two separate branches of

the family obtained admission to the citizenship of Venice.[96] They

erected houses for the living and provided tombs for their dead in the

quarter and the Church of San Cassiano, as may be seen at the present

day.[97] One of these branches was honoured with adoption into the

patrician families of Venice in the seventeenth century,[98] and

afterwards expired. The branch from which I am descended remained in the

class of Cittadini Originari, on which they certainly brought no

discredit whatsoever.

None of my ancestors aspired to the honourable and lucrative posts which

are open to Venetian citizens.[99] They were for the most part men of

peaceful unambitious temper, contented with their lot in life, or

perhaps averse from the disturbances of competition. Had they entered

upon a political career, I am quite sure that they would have served

their Prince faithfully, without pride and without vain ostentation.

About two centuries ago, my great-great-grandfather purchased some six

hundred acres of land,[100] together with buildings, in Friuli, at the

distance of five miles from Pordenone. A large portion of these estates

consists of meadow-land, and is held by feudal tenure. All the

heirs-male are bound to renew the investiture, which costs some ducats.

Upon this point the officials of the Camera de' Feudi at Udine are

extremely vigilant. If the fine is not paid immediately after the death

of the last feudatory, they confiscate the crops derived from the

meadows subject to this tenure. That happened to me after my father's

decease. A few months' negligence cost me a considerable sum in excess

of the customary fine. It is probably by right of some old parchment

that we own the title of Count, conceded to our family in public acts

and in the addresses of letters.[101] I should feel no resentment, if

this title were refused me; but it would anger me extremely, if my hay

were withheld.

My father was Jacopo Antonio Gozzi; a man of fine and penetrative

intellect, of sensitive and delicate honour, of susceptible temper,

resolute, and sometimes even formidable. His father Gasparo died while

he was yet a child, leaving this only son to the guardianship of his

mother, the Contessa Emilia Grampo, a noble woman of Padua. The estate

was sufficient to sustain his dignity with credit; but he indulged

dreams of magnificence. Sole heir, and educated by a tender mother, who

humoured every fancy of her son, he early acquired the habit of

following his own inclinations. These led him into lordly

extravagances--stables full of horses; kennels of hounds;

hunting-parties; splendid banquets--nor did he reflect upon the

consequences of a marriage, which he made without deliberation in his

early manhood, to indulge a whim of the heart. My mother was Angela

Tiepolo, the daughter of one branch of that patrician house, which

expired in her brother Almorò Cesare.[102] He died, a Senator of the

Republic, about the year 1749.

I shall perhaps have wearied my readers with these facts about my

pedigree and birth. Satirists will not, however, find in them anything

to excite ambition in myself or to wing their pen with ridicule. Social

ranks have always been regarded by me as accidental, though necessary

for the proper subordination on which our institutions depend. As for my

birth, I think less of whence I came than of whither I am going. Conduct

unworthy of a decent origin might cause sorrow to my deceased parents,

whose memory I hold in honour, and might cover myself and all my

posterity with shame.

My name is Carlo. I was the sixth child born by my mother into the

light, or shall I say the shadows of this world. I am writing on the

last day of April in the year 1780. I have passed fifty, and not yet

reached the age of sixty.[103] I shall not put the sacristan to trouble

in order to view the register of my baptism, being quite sure that I was

christened, and not having the stupid vanity to pass for a curled

dandy. That is obvious, and has been always obvious, from the fashion of

my clothes and the way I dress my hair. Besides, I set no value on the

age of men. Human beings die at all ages; and I have seen boys who are

adult, while grown-up men or grey-beards are often nothing better than

peevish and ridiculous children.

II.

_My Education and Circumstances down to the Age of

Sixteen--Concerning the Art of Improvisation, and my Literary

Studies._

Our family consisted of eleven children, male and female. I could record

nothing but what is creditable of my brothers and sisters, had I

proposed to write their memoirs. But this is not my thought; and they

are capable of writing their own, if the whim should take them; for the

epidemic of literature was always chronic in our household.

A succession of priests with little learning were our domestic

pedagogues up to a certain age. I say a succession advisedly; each in

turn having earned his dismissal by impertinent behaviour and intrigues

with the serving-maids.

From early childhood I was always a silent observer of men and things,

by no means insolent, of imperturbable serenity, and extremely

attentive to my lessons. My brothers used my taciturn and peaceable

temper to their own advantage. They accused me to our common tutor of

all the naughtinesses of which they had been guilty. I did not

condescend to excuse myself or to accuse them, but bore my unjust

punishments with stoicism. I venture to affirm that no boy was ever more

supremely indifferent than I was to the terrible penalty of being sent

away from table just as we were sitting down to dinner. Smiling

obedience was my only self-defence. Enemies may conclude from these

traits of character that I was a stupid lout, and friends that I was a

philosopher in embryo. Nothing is rarer than the eye of equal justice.

Yet any one who takes the trouble to inquire of my acquaintances and

servants, will learn that my taciturnity, my tolerance, my stoical

endurance, have not changed with years--that I continue to view the

events of this life with a smile, and that only those have nettled me

which touched my honour.

[Illustration: SCARAMOUCH (1645)

_Illustrating the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, or Impromptu Comedy_]

The growing disorder in our family affairs did not at first deprive us

boys of a sound education. My two elder brothers, Gasparo and Francesco,

went to public schools,[104] and were in time to drink at all the

fountains of the regular curriculum. Extravagant expenditure, however,

combined with the needs of a numerous progeny, soon rendered anything

like an adequate course of studies impossible for the younger

children. I was intrusted for some years to a learned country-parson,

and then to a priest in Venice, of decent acquirements and excellent

morality. After this I entered the academy of two Genoese priests, who

supplied instruction to some youths of noble birth, and to some of no

nobility whatever. There were about twenty-five pupils in this academy.

We pursued the same studies, with some difference according to our

classes. Here I had the opportunity of observing that teachers are very

valuable guides to youths who love learning, and mere images of

ineffectual deities to such as hate it. For my part, being fond of books

and eager for information, I imbibed my fill of such instruction as a

boy can acquire before the age of fourteen. But sloth and vicious habits

extirpate the seeds of learning planted by preceptors in the minds of

ill-conditioned lads. Therefore I saw, and still see, more than

two-thirds of my fellow-pupils sunk in a slough of baseness. Grammar,

the classics, and rhetoric only taught them to get drunk in taverns, to

carry sacks for hire upon their shoulders, and to cry "_Baked apples,

plums, and chestnuts!_" about the streets, with a basket on their heads

and a pair of scales slung round their waists. Wretched fate to be a

father!

When I became aware that our domestic difficulties would prove an

obstacle to my remaining long at school, I determined to utilise the

little I had already learned, and to carry on my education by myself. My

elder brother Gasparo's example, whose passion for study had won public

recognition, and my own good-will, kept me nailed to books of all sorts;

nor could I imagine any pleasure worth a thought, beyond reading,

meditating, and writing.

Poetry, choice Italian, and correct style were then in vogue. The young

men of Venice met to discuss these three topics, which have now been

utterly forgotten--possibly for the greater advantage and convenience of

our citizens. I see crowds of young people, hair-brained, conceited,

idle, frivolous, presumptuous, and harmful to society. Heaven knows what

their studies are! Not poetry, not the niceties of the Italian language,

not correction of style. And then, forsooth, I am to admire a

hurly-burly of well-born persons, who claim in their foolhardiness to be

omniscient, who produce nothing whatsoever, who cannot write three lines

of a letter which shall express their sentiments, and which shall not

swarm with revolting faults of grammar and of spelling!

I will omit to observe that respect for nobles in a state is necessary;

but that the respect shown simply for their birth and wealth is not

respect but false feigned adulation. I will refrain from asserting that

a daily correspondence, maintained with a large variety of

persons--people who may not perhaps be scientific, but who understand

whether a letter is well written or ridiculous--may be capable of

securing a large part of the regard, or of occasioning a large part of

the contempt, bestowed on nobles. I make no mention of the rich man in

Signor Mercier's comedy of Indigence, who found it impossible to write a

letter of the utmost importance because his secretary was away from

home. I will say nothing to those scientific tutors of the scions of our

aristocracy, who instil derision and disdain for polite literature and

the art of elegance in diction into the brains of their pupils, moulding

them into geometricians, mathematicians, philosophers, physicists,

astronomers, algebraical professors, naturalists, a whole deluge of

sciences, but who cannot after all their labour express in writing what

they have taught or what the common business of life requires.

All these things, and everything which imposture has presented to my

senses and impressed upon my mind, must remain unwritten in my pen. I

have no wish to make enemies.

Yet we cannot prevent drops of ink from falling sometimes from the pen

and making blots upon our papers. Just so, while I am dictating these

memoirs of my life, I shall not be able to avoid splutterings, however

out of place and inconvenient.

I am almost ashamed to confess the intense assiduity with which I

applied myself to those frivolous literary studies of which I have been

speaking. They brought on a hæmorrhage from the nostrils, so violent

and so frequent, that I was more than once or twice given up for dead in

the manner of Seneca.[105] In their anxiety about my health, my friends

hid away all my books, and deprived me of paper and inkstand; but I was

the cleverest of thieves in searching for them, and went on doggedly

reading and writing by stealth in the uninhabited attics of our mansion.

After relating this fact about my boyhood, malicious people may think

that I am claiming to be considered worthy of a panegyric. They are

quite mistaken. I fix them with my eyeglass, and assure them that it is

rather my intention to provide them with another good reason for

quizzing me. The famous Doctor Tissot angrily rebukes excessive

application to those studies which are universally esteemed as useless.

He reserves his praise for folk who ruin their health in pursuits

considered beneficial to humanity; and such, I do not doubt, are the

studies affected by himself and his admirers.

The Abbé Giovan Antonio Verdani, keeper of the select and extensive

library of the patrician family Soranzo, was a man of vast literary

erudition. He felt compassion for my weakness, which coincided with his

own, and directed my reading by lending me the rarest books,

masterpieces of pure Italian diction in prose and poetry. To estimate

the quantities of paper which I covered with my thoughts in verse and

prose, would be beyond my powers. I tried to imitate the style of all

the early Tuscan writers who are most admired. Assuredly I never

approached the perfection of their language; but I am none the less sure

that the diligent and attentive perusal of a mass of the best works,

treating of a vast variety of subjects, cannot fail to furnish a better

head than mine with instruction and ideas, with the power of making just

reflections and probable conjectures, and with the principles of sound

morality. I am also convinced that the imitation of style in writing,

pursued methodically, enables a man to express his own thoughts with

facility, propriety of colouring, exactitude of phrase and term,

according to the variety of images, grave or gay, familiar or dignified,

which we desire to develop and to communicate under their true aspect in

prose or poetry.

Without attaining to the mastery of style at which I aimed, I acquired

the miserable satisfaction of finding myself in the very select group of

persons who know this truth. I also earned the wretchedness of being

forced to read with insuperable aversion and disgust the works of many

modern Italian authors, which are full of false fancies and sophisms,

the rhetoric and diction of which never vary however the subject-matter

changes, which are defiled by all manner of gibberish, bombast,

nonsense, with periods involved in unintelligible vortices, and with

preposterous phraseology. The sciences, the discoveries, the branches

of new knowledge which are now so loudly vaunted, ought to be accepted

as useful, and are worthy of respect. For this reason it is wrong to

profane them and to render them contemptible by barbarous impurity and

impropriety of diction. Francesco Redi, that great man, great

philosopher, great physician, great naturalist, confirms my doctrine by

his written works.[106] As regards the literature of art and wit and

fancy, it is obvious that without correction of style this is absolutely

worthless and condemned to merited oblivion. No one could count the fine

and ample sentiments which perish, smothered in the mire of inartistic

writing. Not less numerous, on the other hand, are the small but

brilliant thoughts, duly coloured with appropriate terms, and placed at

the right point of view by a master-hand, which sparkle before the eyes

of every reader, be he learned or simple.

There is no disputing about tastes. Yet I think it could be easily

maintained that our century has lapsed into a shameful torpor with

regard to these things. I have written and printed quite enough upon the

subject; without effect, however; and now I see no reason why I should

not utter a last funeral lament over the mastery of art I longed to

possess. That mastery, which nowadays is reckoned among the inutilities

of existence, has been freely conceded to me by the verdict of

contemporaries--blind judges, governed not by intelligence but by

ignorant assumption--so that their opinion does not sustain me with the

sure conviction of having attained my purpose. Nevertheless I am

grateful even to the blind and deaf, who see and hear what gives them

pleasure in my writings.

My pursuit of culture advanced on the lines I have described, whether

for my happiness or my misfortune it is worthless to inquire. I read

continually, and wasted enormous quantities of ink; paid close attention

to men and manners; profited by the encouragement of the Abbé Verdani

and Antonio Federigo Seghezzi; walked in the steps of my brother

Gasparo; and frequented a literary society which met daily at our house.

From a Piedmontese, who knew how to read and nothing more, I learned the

first rudiments of French; not that I wished to talk French in Italy, an

affectation which I loathed; but because it was my desire, by the help

of grammar and dictionary, to study the books, most excellent in part,

in part injurious to society, which issue daily from the French press.

It was thus that I formed those literary tastes, to which I have always

clung for innocent and disinterested amusement, and which, now that my

hairs are grey, will be my solace till the hour of death. The giants of

science, to whom I dare not raise my quizzing-glass for fear of

committing an unpardonable sin, will perceive that in describing the

scanty sources of my education, I am only painting the portrait of a

literary pigmy in all humility.

As regards my moral training, it is only necessary to observe that the

family of which I was a member has always cherished a deep and fervent

reverence for the august image of religion, and that my father, careless

as he was in matters of economy, never neglected religious duties or the

good ensample of honourable conduct. He was a bitter enemy of falsehood.

His delicate susceptibility detected a lie by the inflection of the

voice, and he punished it upon the spot with sounding boxes on the ears

of his offspring.

Being a bold rider and passionately fond of horses, he taught us to

ride, and liked to see us every day on horseback during our summer

visits to the country. It was useless to plead timidity, or to shrink

from the snortings and jibbings of some half-broken beast he wanted us

to back. Up we went; a cut or two of the switch across our legs set us

off at a gallop; and there we were in full career, without a thought for

broken shins or necks. Some jockeys, who came to break in vicious colts,

put me up to tricks for mastering a hard-mouthed bolting animal. One of

these tricks stood me in good stead upon an occasion I shall afterwards

relate. Indeed, I may say that I owe my life to a jockey.

We had a little theatre of no great architectural pretensions in our

country-house; and here we children used to act.[107] Brothers and

sisters alike were gifted with some talent for comedy; and all of us,

before a crowd of rustic spectators, passed for players of the first

quality. Beside tragic and comic pieces learned by heart, we frequently

improvised farces with a slight plot upon some laughable motive. My

sister Marina and I had the knack of imitating certain married couples

notorious in the village for their burlesque humours. We used to

interpolate our farces with scenes and dialogues in which the famous

quarrels of these women with their drunken husbands were reproduced to

the life. Our clothes were copied from the originals; and the imitation

was so exact that our bucolic audience hailed it with Homeric peals of

laughter, measuring their applause by the delight it afforded their

coarse natures. My father and mother took a fancy to see themselves

represented in this way. My sister and I were shy at first, but we had

to obey our parents. Finally, we regaled them with a perfect

reproduction of their costume, their gestures, their way of talking, and

some of their familiar household bickerings. Their astonishment was

great, and their laughter was the only punishment of our dutiful

temerity.

I learned to twang the guitar with a certain amount of skill, and vied

with my brother Gasparo in improvising rhymed verses, which I sang to

music in our hours of recreation. This was done with all the

foolhardiness inseparable from a display which the vulgar are only too

apt to regard as miraculous. Since I have touched upon the point, I will

digress a little on this so-called miracle. In my opinion, the immense

crowds of people hanging with open mouths upon the lips of an

_improvisatore_ only prove that, in spite of the contempt into which

poetry has fallen, it still possesses that power over the minds and the

brains of men which their tongues deny it. Cristoforo Altissimo, a poet

of the fifteenth century, is said to have publicly improvised his epic

in octave stanzas on the Reali di Francia; the words were taken down

from his lips, just as he composed them at the moment. The book was

published; and though it is extremely rare, I have read it through the

kindness of the Abbé Verdani. Only a few stanzas, out of all that ocean

of verse, are worthy of the name of poetry; and yet we may believe that

before the work was given to the press, some pains had been bestowed

upon it. I have listened to many extempore versifiers, male and female,

the most famous of our century. It has always struck me that if the

deluges of verses which they spout forth with face on fire, to the

applause of frantic multitudes, were written down, they would have very

little poetical value, and that nobody would have the patience to read

the twentieth part of them. Padre Zucchi, of the Olivetan Order, whom I

heard in my youth, surpassed his rivals; now and then he produced

sensible stanzas; but he improvised so slowly that reflection may have

had some part in the result. I do not deny that these extempore

rhymesters may be people of culture and learning, qualified to discourse

well upon the themes proposed to them. Yet they would not be listened

to, if they spoke ever so divinely in prose. In order to draw a crowd,

they are forced to express their thoughts and images, just as they come,

with voluble rapidity, in bad rhymed verses, which often are no better

than a gabble of words without sense. This throws their audience into a

trance of astonishment. Humanity has always quested after the marvellous

like a hound. If a painter sought to depict foolhardiness or imposture

wearing the mask of poetry, I could recommend nothing better than the

portrait of an improvisatore, with goggle-eyes and arms in air, and a

multitude staring up at him in stupid dumb amazement. These being my

sentiments, I am willing, out of mere politeness and good manners, to

approve the coronation of a Cavaliere Perfetto or a Corilla on the

Capitol. But I can only accept with cordial and serious enthusiasm the

honours of that sort paid to a Virgil, a Petrarch, and a Tasso.

The Arcadians will laugh when I proceed to speak about an improvisatore,

whom I knew and whom I have listened to a hundred times. Yet I should be

committing an injustice if I did not mention him, and declare my opinion

that he was the single really wonder-worthy artist in this kind, with

whom I ever came in contact. He used to pour forth anacreontics, octave

stanzas, any and every metre, extempore, to the music of a well-touched

guitar. His verses rhymed, but had no _Clio_, _Euterpe_, _Plettro_,

_Parnaso_, _Aganippe_, _Ruscelletto_, _Zefiretto_, and such stuff, in

them. They composed a well-developed discourse, flowing evenly, not

soaring, but with abundance of well-connected images, and natural,

lively, graceful thoughts. He invariably used either the Venetian or the

Paduan dialect; which will augment the derisive laughter of Arcadia, and

make the Campidoglio ring. On one occasion, while he was improvising on

the theme: _diligite inimicos vestros_, it happened that two enemies

were present. At another time, he dilated on his own grief for a

cavaliere[108] who had been kind to him, and who was then dying, given

over by the doctors. Not only did the audience hang upon his lips with

rapt attention; but in the former case, the enemies were reconciled,

while in the latter tears were freely shed for the poet's expiring

benefactor. Such influence over the passions of the heart reveals a true

poet; for such a man I reserve the laurel crown upon my Campidoglio. His

name was Giovanni Sibiliato, brother of the celebrated professor of

literature in the University of Padua.

Returning from this digression, I will resume the narrative of my

boyhood. I learned to fence and to dance; but books and composition were

my chief pastime. Before a numerous audience in our literary assemblies

I felt no shyness. In private visits, among people new to me, the

reserve of my demeanour often passed for savagery. My first sonnet of

passable quality was written at the age of nine. Beside the applause it

won me, I was rewarded with a box of comfits; and for this reason I have

never forgotten it. The occasion of its composition was as follows. A

certain Signora Angela Armano, midwife by trade, had a friend at Padua

whose pet dog died and left her inconsolable. Signora Angela wished to

comfort her friend; indulged in condolements for her loss; and sent a

little spaniel of her own, called Delina, to replace the defunct pet.

Delina was to be given as a present, and a sonnet was to accompany the

gift, expressing all the sentiments which a lady of Signora Angela's

profession might entertain in a circumstance of such importance. Though

our family was a veritable lunatic asylum of poets, no one cared to

translate the good creature's gossipping garrulity into verse. Moved by

her entreaties, I undertook the task; and the following Bernesque sonnet

was the result:--

"Madama io vi vorrei pur confortare

Con qualche graziosa diceria,

Ma la sciagura vuole, e vostra, e mia,

Che in un sonetto la non vi può stare.

Non vi state, mia cara, a disperare,

Che la sarebbe una poltroneria,

L'entrar per un can morto in frenesia;

Chi nasce muor, convien moralizzare.

Vi sovvenite, ch' egli avrà pisciato

Alcuna volta in camera, o in cucina,

Che in quell' istante lo avreste ammazzato.

Io vi spedisco intanto la Delina

Che più d'un cane ha d'essa innamorato,

E può farvi di cani una dezina.

È bella, e picciolina;

Di lei non voglio più nuova, o risposta,

Servitevi per razza, o di supposta."

Two years later, a new edition of the poems of Gaspara Stampa appeared

in Venice, at the expense of Count Antonio Ramboldo di Collalto of

Vienna, a prince distinguished for his birth and writings. Scholars know

that this sixteenth-century Sappho sighed her soul forth in love-laments

to a certain Count Collaltino di Collalto, doughty warrior and polished

versifier, and that she was reputed to have died of hopeless passion in

her youth.[109] The ladies of our century will hardly believe her

story; for Cupid has changed temper since those days, and kills his

victims with far different and less honourable weapons. Some verses by

contemporary writers in praise of our literary heroine were to be

appended to this edition of her works. I dared to enter the lists, and

wrote a sonnet in the style of the earliest Tuscan poets. Such as it is,

the sonnet may be found printed in the book which I have indicated. It

appears from this juvenile production that I already acknowledged a

mistress of my heart; compliance with fashion was alone responsible for

my precocity.

This trifling composition was read by the famous Apostolo Zeno. He

deigned to inquire for the author, who had reproduced the antique

simplicity of Cino da Pistoja, Guittone d'Arezzo, and Guido Cavalcanti.

On my presenting myself, Signor Zeno politely expressed surprise at

discovering a mere boy in the learned writer of the sonnet, treated me

with kind attention, and placed his choice library at my disposal.[110]

The encouragement of this distinguished poet, true lover of pure style,

and foe to seventeenth-century conceits, added fuel to the fire of my

literary passion. From that day forward not one of those collections of

verses appeared, in which marriages, the entrance of young ladies into

convents, the election of noblemen to offices of state, the deaths of

people, cats, dogs, parrots, and such events, are celebrated in Venice

and other towns of Italy, but that it contained some specimen of my Muse

in grave or playful verse.

Books, paper, pens and ink formed the staple of my existence. I was

always pregnant, always in labour, giving birth to monsters in remote

corners of our mansion. I scribbled furiously, God knows how, up to my

seventeenth year. Besides innumerable essays in prose and multitudes of

fugitive verses, I wrote four long poems, entitled _Berlinghieri_, _Don

Quixote_, _Moral Philosophy_ (based upon the talking animals of

Firenzuola), and _Gonella_ in twelve cantos. The Abbé Verdani took a

fancy to this last, and wished to see it printed. Signor Giulio Cesare

Beccelli, however, had published a poem at Verona on the same subject,

which robbed my work of novelty; and though mine was richer in facts

drawn from good old sources, I did not venture to enter into competition

with him. The three years' absence from home, which I shall presently

relate, and the revolution in our domestic affairs which surprised me on

my return, exposed these boyish literary labours to ruin and

dispersion. It is probable that pork-butchers and fruit-vendors

exercised condign justice on the children of my Muse.

III.

_The Situation of my Family, and my Reasons for Leaving Home._

In the course of these years, the early deaths of a brother and a sister

had reduced our numbers from eleven to nine. Meanwhile, our annual

expenditure exceeded the resources at our command, and left but little

for the needs of a numerous offspring, too old to be contented with a

toy or plaything. Some lawsuits, which we lost, diminished the estate.

Clouds of doubt and care began to obscure the horizon, and in a few

years the family was plunged in pecuniary embarrassment.

My brother Gasparo had taken a wife in a fit of genial poetical

abstraction. Even poetry has its dangers. This man, who was really

singular in his absolute self-dedication to books, in his indefatigable

labours as an author, and in a certain philosophical temper or

indolence, which made him indifferent to everything which was not

literary, learned to fall in love from Petrarch. A young lady, ten years

older than himself, named Luigia Bergalli,[111] better known among the

shepherdesses of Arcady as Irmenia Partenide, a poetess of romantic

fancy, as her published works evince, was my brother's Laura. Not being

a canon, like Petrarch, he married her in Petrarch's spirit, but with

due legal formalities. This woman, of fervent and soaring imagination,

which fitted her for high poetic flights, undertook to regulate the

disorder in our affairs. Impelled by the instincts of a good nature,

with something of ambition and a flattering belief in her own practical

ability, she did the best that in her lay. Yet all her projects and

administrative measures revolved within a circle of romantic raptures

and Pindaric ecstasies. Thirsting with soul-passion after an ideal

realm, she found herself the sovereign of a state in decadence. It was

the desire of her heart to make us all happy, in the most disinterested

way. Yet she accomplished nothing beyond involving every one, and

herself to boot, in the meshes of still greater misfortune. Her

husband, poring perpetually upon his books, could only oppose her at the

sacrifice of ease and quiet. This he was incapable of doing.--In order

to judge people equitably, it is necessary that character, temperament,

and circumstances should be thoroughly explained.

I know how unphilosophical it is to ascribe the discords of a family to

malignant planetary influences. Our domestic circle consisted of a

father, a mother, four brothers, and five sisters, all of them

good-hearted, honourable, mutually well-inclined; and yet it became the

very mirror of infelicity at every moment and in each of the persons who

composed it. Minute investigation into the causes of this painful fact

would probably reveal them. But it is better to adopt the language of

the vulgar, and to say that a bad star pursued our family. Otherwise,

analysis might lead one into acts of unkindness, and involve one in

hatred.

The confusion in which we lived at that period, and the bitter

discomforts we had to bear, were augmented by expenses due to my

brother's increasing progeny. Our worst disaster, however (and this

wound I carry in my heart even to the present day), was a cruel stroke

of apoplexy which laid my beloved father low. He continued to exist, an

invalid, for about seven years after the sad event; dumb and paralytic,

but in possession of all his mental faculties--a circumstance which

rendered his deplorable condition almost unbearable to a man of my

father's extreme sensibility.

The tears of five sisters, the births of nephews and nieces, a house

swarming with female go-betweens, brokers, and the Hebrew ministers of

our decaying realm--all this whirlpool of economical extravagance and

folly, to utter one word against which was reckoned mutiny or treason,

drove my second brother, Francesco, into exile. He went into the Levant

with the Provveditore Generale di Mare,[112] his Excellency the

Cavaliere Antonio Loredano, of happy memory. At that period I was about

thirteen.

Letters written from Corfu by this brother describing the kindness shown

him by his Provveditore, and the rank of ensign to which he soon

attained, awoke in me a burning desire to escape like him from those

domestic turmoils, the gravity of which I felt in experience and

measured by anticipation, but which my state of boyhood rendered me

unable to remedy. Our uncle on the mother's side, Almorò Cesare Tiepolo,

recommended me to his Excellency Girolamo Quirini, Provveditore Generale

elect for Dalmatia and Albania. Furnished with a modest outfit, in which

my book-box and guitar were not forgotten, I bade farewell to my parents

at the age of seventeen,[113] and went across seas as volunteer into

those provinces, to study the ways and manners of my fellow-soldiers,

and of the peoples among whom we were quartered.

IV.

_I Embark upon a Galley, and Cross the Seas to Zara._

I was not slow to perceive that I had adopted a career by no means

suited to my character, the proper motto for which was always the

following verse from Berni:

"Voleva far da se, non commandato."

My natural dislike of changeableness kept me, however, from showing by

outward signs of any sort that I repented of my choice; and I reflected

that abundant opportunities were now at least offered for observations

on the men of a world new to me. This thought sufficed to keep me in

good spirits and a cheerful humour through all the vicissitudes of my

three years' sojourn in Illyria.

According to orders received from his Excellency, the Provveditore

Generale Quirini, I embarked before him on a galley called

_Generalizia_, which was riding at the port of Malamocco. There I was to

wait for his arrival. A band of military officers received me with

glances of courtesy and some curiosity. In a Court where all the members

are seeking fortune, each newcomer is regarded with suspicion. Whether

he has to be reckoned with or may be disregarded on occasions of

promotion, concerns the whole crew of officials, who, like him, are

dependent on the will of the Provveditore. It was perhaps insensibility

which made me indifferent to these preoccupations; this the sequel of my

narrative will show; and yet such thoughts are very wood-worms in the

hearts of courtiers.

I had to swallow a great quantity of questions, to which I replied with

the laconic brevity of an inexperienced lad upon his guard. Some of

those gentlemen had known my brother Francesco at Corfu. When they

discovered who I was, they seemed to be relieved of all anxiety on my

account, and welcomed me with noisy demonstrations of soldierly

comradeship. I expressed my thanks in modest, almost monosyllabic

phrases. They set me down for an awkward young fellow, unobliging, and

proud. This was a mistake, as they freely confessed a few months later

on. I had retired into myself, with the view of studying their

characters and sketching my line of action. The quick and penetrative

intuition with which I was endowed at birth by God, together with the

faculty of imperturbable reserve, enabled me in the course of a few

hours to recognise in that little group some men of noble birth and

liberal culture, some nobles ruined by the worst of educations, and some

plebeians who owed their position to powerful protection.

Gaming, intemperance, and unbridled sensuality were deeply rooted in the

whole company. I laid my plans of conduct, and found them useful in the

future. My intimacies were few, but durable. The vices I have named,

clung like ineradicable cancers to the men with whom I associated. Sound

principles engrafted on me in my early years, regard for health, and the

slenderness of my purse helped me to avoid their seductions. At the same

time, I saw no reason why I should proclaim a crusade against them.

Holding a middle course, I succeeded in winning the affection of my

comrades. They invited me to take part in their orgies. I did not play

the prude. Without yielding myself to the transports of brutal appetite,

I proved the gayest reveller at all those lawless meetings. Some of my

seniors, on whom a career of facile pleasure had left its inevitable

stigma, used to twit me with being a reserved young simpleton. I did

not heed their raillery, but laughed at the inebriation of my comrades,

studied the bent of divers characters, observed the animal brutality of

men, and used our uproarious debauches as a school for fathoming the

depths of human frailty.

Now I will return to the point of my embarkation on the galley

_Generalizia_ in the port of Malamocco. While awaiting the arrival of

the Provveditore, I had two whole days and nights to spend in sad

reflections on humanity. These were suggested by the spectacle of some

three hundred scoundrels, loaded with chains, condemned to drag their

life out in a sea of miseries and torments, each of which was sufficient

by itself to kill a man. An epidemic of malignant fever raged among

these men, carrying away its victims daily from the bread and water, the

irons, and the whips of the slavemasters. Attended in their last passage

by a gaunt black Franciscan friar, with thundering voice and jovial

mien, these wretches took their flight--I hope and think--for Paradise.

[Illustration: THE FRANCISCAN FRIAR ON THE GALLEY

_Original Etching by Ad. Lalauze_]

The Provveditore's arrival amid the din of instruments and roar of

cannon roused me from my dismal reveries. I had visited this gentleman

ten times at least in his own palace, and had always been received with

that playful welcome and confidential sweetness which distinguish the

patricians of Venice. He made his appearance now in crimson--crimson

mantle, cap, and shoes--with an air of haughtiness unknown to me, and

fierceness stamped upon his features. The other officers informed

me that when he donned this uniform of state, he had to be addressed

with profound and silent salaams, different indeed from the reverence

one pays at Venice to a patrician in his civil gown.[114] He boarded the

galley, and seemed to take no notice whatever of the crowd around him,

bowing till their noses rubbed their toes. The affability with which he

touched our hands in Venice had disappeared; he looked at none of us;

and sentenced the young captain of the guard, called Combat, to arrest

in chains, because he had omitted some trifle of the military salute. My

comrades stood dumbfounded, staring at one another with open eyes. This

singular change from friendliness to severity set my brains at work. By

the light of my boyish philosophy I seemed to comprehend why the noble

of a great republic, elected general of an armament[115] and governor of

two wide provinces, on his first appearance in that office, felt bound

to assume a totally different aspect from what was natural to him in his

private capacity. He had to inspire fear and a spirit of submission into

his subordinates. Otherwise they might have taken liberties upon the

strength of former courtesy displayed by him, being for the most part

presumptuous young fellows, apt to boast about their favour with the

general. For my own part, since I was firmly bent on doing my duty

without ambitious plans or dreams of fortune, this formidable attitude

and the harsh commands of the great man made a less disheartening

impression on me than on my companions. I whispered to myself: "He

certainly inspires me with a kind of dread; but he has taken immense

trouble to transform his nature in order to produce this effect; I am

sure the irksomeness which he is suffering now must be greater than any

discomfort he can cause me."

The general retired to his cabin in the bowels of our floating hell, and

sent Lieutenant-Colonel Micheli, his major in the province, to make out

a list of all the officers and volunteers on board, together with the

names of their protectors. Nobody expected this; for we had been

personally presented to the general at Venice, and had explained our

affairs in frequent conversations. Once more I reflected that this was

his way of damping the expectations which might have been bred in

scheming brains before he exchanged the politenesses of private life for

the austerities of office. The Maggiore della Provincia Micheli--a most

excellent person and very fat--bustled about his business, sweating, and

scribbling with a pencil on a sheet of paper, as though the matter was

one of life or death. Everybody began to shy and grumble and chafe with

indignation at passing under review in this way. When my turn came, I

answered frankly that I was called Carlo Gozzi, and that I had been

recommended by the patrician Almorò Cesare Tiepolo. I withheld his title

of senator and the fact that he was my maternal uncle, deeming it

prudent not to seem ambitious.

The _Generalizia_, convoyed by another galley named _Conserva_ and a few

light vessels of war, got under way for the Adriatic;[116] and the night

fell very dark upon the waters. I shall not easily forget that night,

because of a little incident which happened to me, and which shows what

a curious place of refuge a galley is for young men leaving their homes

for the first time. A natural necessity made me seek some corner for

retirement. I was directed to the bowsprit; on approaching it, an

Illyrian sentinel, with scowling visage, bushy whiskers, and levelled

musket, howled his "_Who goes there?_" in a tremendous voice. When he

understood my business, he let me pass. My next step lighted on a soft

and yielding mass, which gave forth a kind of gurgling sound, like the

stifled breath of an asthmatic patient, into the dark silent night.

Retracing my path, I asked the sentinel what the thing was, which

responded with its inarticulate gurgling voice to the pressure of my

feet. He answered with the coldest indifference that it was the corpse

of a galley-slave, who had succumbed to the fever, and had been flung

there till he could be buried on the sea-shore sands in Istria. The hair

on my head bristled with horror. But my happy disposition for seeing the

ludicrous side of things soon came to my assistance.

After twelve days of much discomfort, and twelve noisome nights, passed

in broken slumbers under the decks of that galley, which only too well

deserved its name, our little fleet entered the port of Zara. We went on

shore at first privately and quietly; and after a few days the public

ceremonies of official disembarkation were gone through. The

Provveditore Generale Jacopo Cavalli handed his baton of command over to

the Provveditore Generale Girolamo Quirini with all the formalities

proper to the occasion. This solemnity, which is performed upon the open

sea, to the sound of military music, the thunder of artillery, and the

crackling of musket-shots, deserves to be witnessed by all who take an

interest in imposing spectacles. An old man, fat and short of stature,

with a pair of moustachios bristling up beneath his nostrils, a merry

and most honest fellow to boot, who bore the name of Captain Girolamo

Visinoni, was appointed master of these ceremonies, on account of his

intimate acquaintance with their details. I had no other duty that day

but to wear my best clothes, which did not cost much trouble.

V.

_I Fall Dangerously Ill; Recover; Form the only Intimate

Acquaintance I made in Dalmatia._

When the new Regency had been established and the Court settled, I had

but eight days to learn my duties as volunteer or adjutant[117] to his

Excellency, as it is called there, before I fell ill of a fever which

was declared to be malignant. Alone among people whom I hardly knew, at

the commencement of my career, poorly provided with money, and lying in

a wretched room, the windows of which were closed with torn and rotten

paper instead of glass, I could not but compare my present destitution

with the comforts of our home. Here I was battling with a mortal disease

in solitude. There, at the least touch of illness, I enjoyed the tender

solicitude of a sister or a servant at my pillow, to brush away the

flies which settled on my forehead. Fortunately, I was not so strongly

attached to life as to be rendered miserable by unavailing recollections

and gloomy forebodings.

It happened one day, as I lay there burning, that a convict presented

himself at the door of my miserable den, and asked me if I wanted

anything which he could fetch me. He was one of those men who prowl

around the officers' quarters, wrapped in an old blanket with a bit of

rope about the waist, ready to do any dirty business and to pilfer if

they find the opportunity. I gave him a few farthings and told him to

send me a confessor--an errand very different from what he had expected.

Before long a good Dominican appeared, who prepared me to die with the

courage of an ancient Roman. Our modern sages may laugh at this plebeian

wish of mine to make my peace with Heaven; but I have never been able to

dissociate philosophy from religion. Satisfied to remain a little child

before the mysteries of faith, I do not envy wise men in their

disengagement from spiritual terrors.

The chief physician, Danieli, a man of prodigious corpulence and

blackness, who had been sent to my assistance by the Governor, spared no

attentions and no remedies. As usual, they proved unavailing; and he

bade me prepare myself for death by receiving the holy sacrament. I

summoned what remained to me of vital force, and went through this

ceremony with devotion. There seemed to be so little difference between

a sepulchre and the room in which my body lay, that I felt no disgust at

relinquishing my corpse to the grave-diggers. I was now ready for the

last unction, when an attack of hemorrhage from the nostrils, like those

which had already nearly brought me to death's door, recalled me for the

nonce to life. All the ordinary remedies--ligatures, powders, herbs,

astringent plasters, sympathetic stones, muttered charms, old wives'

talismans--were exhibited in vain. After filling two basons with blood,

I lapsed into a profound swoon, which the doctor styled a syncope. To

all appearances I was dead; but the blood stopped; in a quarter of an

hour I revived; and three days afterwards I found myself, weak indeed,

but wholly free from fever and on the road to recovery. My ignorance

could not reconcile this salutary crisis with Danieli's absolute

prohibition of blood-letting in my malady. But I suppose that a score of

learned physicians, each of them upon a different system of hypotheses,

conjectures, well-based calculations, and trains of lucid argument,

would be able to demonstrate the phenomenon to their own satisfaction

and to the illumination or confusion of my stupid brain. Stupendous

indeed are the mental powers which Almighty God has bestowed on men!

The readers of these Memoirs will hardly need to be informed that my

slender purse had nothing in it at the termination of this illness.

Under these painful circumstances I found a cordial and open-hearted

friend in Signor Innocenzio Massimo, nobleman of Padua, and captain of

halbardiers at the Dalmatian Court. This excellent gentleman, of rare

distinction for his mental parts, the quickness of his spirit, his

courage, energy, and honour, was the only intimate friend whom I

possessed during my three years' absence from home. When they were over,

our friendship continued undiminished by lapse of time, distance, and

the various vicissitudes of life. I have enjoyed it through thirty-five

years, and am sure that it will never fail me. Some qualities of his

character have exposed him to enmity; among these I may mention a

particular sensitiveness to affronts, an intolerance of attempts to

deceive him, and a quick perception of fraud, together with a firm

resolve to stem the tide of extravagance and fashionable waste in his

own family. His many virtues, the decent comfort of his household, his

hospitality to friends and acquaintances, his careful provision for the

well-being of his posterity, his benevolence to the poor and afflicted,

his successful efforts as a peacemaker among discordant fellow-citizens,

his expenditure of time and trouble upon all who come to him for advice

or assistance, have not sufficed to disarm the malignity of a vulgar

crowd, corrupted by the false philosophy of our century, which goes from

bad to worse in dissolution and ill manners.

VI.

_Short Studies in the Science of Fortification and Military

Exercises.--Some Reflections which will pass for Foolishness._

On the restoration of my health, his Excellency placed me under

Cavaliere Marchiori, Lieutenant-Colonel of Engineers, to learn

mathematics as applied to fortification. This gentleman sent for me, and

said that he had heard from my uncle of my aptitude for study, adding

that the subject he proposed to teach me was of the greatest consequence

to a soldier. I perceived at once that I was being treated on a

different footing from the other volunteers, and that the studied

forgetfulness of the Provveditore had been, as I suspected, a politic

device to humble ambitious schemers. I thanked Signor Marchiori, and

followed his instructions with pleasure, without however abandoning my

own interest in literature.

He questioned me regarding my knowledge of arithmetic, which was only

elementary; and when I saw that I must master it, in order to pursue the

higher branch of study, I gave my whole head to the business. In the

space of a month, I could cipher like a money-lender, and was ready to

receive my master's teaching. My friend Massimo possessed a good

collection of instruments for engineering draughtsmanship, and a

library of French works on geometry, mathematics, and fortification,

both of which he placed at my disposal. Signor Marchiori's lectures,

long discussions with Signor Massimo, perusal of Euclid, Archimedes, and

the French books, soon plunged me in the lore of points and lines and

calculations. I burned with the enthusiasm, droll enough to my way of

looking at the world, which inspires all students of this science. Yet I

did not, like them, regard moral philosophy and humane literature as

insignificant frivolities. I bore in mind for what good reasons the

Emperor Vespasian dismissed the mathematicians who offered their

assistance in the building of his Roman edifices. I knew that

innumerable vessels, fabricated on the principles of science, have

perished miserably in the tempests; that hundreds of fortresses, built

by science, have been destroyed and captured by the same science; that

inundations are continually sweeping away the dykes erected by science,

to the ruin of thousands of families, and that the inundations

themselves are attributable to the admired masterpieces of science

bequeathed to us by former generations; that, in spite of science and

her creative energy, the buildings she erects are not secured from

earthquakes, conflagrations, and the thunderbolt. It remains to be seen

whether Professor Toaldo's lightning-conductors will prove effectual

against the last of these disasters. Then I reckoned up the blessings

and curses which this vaunted science has conferred on humanity,

arriving at the conclusion that the harm which she has done infinitely

exceeds the good. I shuddered at the hundreds of thousands of human

beings ingeniously massacred in war or drowned at sea by her devices;

and took more pleasure in consulting my watch, her wise invention, for

the dinner-hour than at the hour of keeping an appointment with my

lawyer. Without denying the utility of sciences, I stuck resolutely to

the opinion that moral philosophy is of more importance to the human

race than mechanical inventions, and deplored the pernicious influence

of modern Lyceums and Polytechnic schools upon the mind of Europe.

Signor Massimo and I kept house together in a little dwelling on the

city walls, facing the sea. The sun, in his daily revolutions, struck

this habitation on every side; and there was not an open space of wall

or window-sill without its dial, fabricated by my skill, and adorned

with appropriate but useless mottoes on the flight of time. A lieutenant

named Giovanni Apergi, upright and pious, especially when the gout he

had acquired in the world's pleasures made him turn his thoughts to

Heaven, gave me friendly lessons in military drill. I soon learned to

handle my musket, pike, and ensign; and sweated a shirt daily, fencing

with Massimo, who was ferociously expert in that fiendish but

gentlemanly art. We also spent some hours together over a great

chessboard of his, covered with wooden soldiers, which we moved from

square to square, forming squadrons, and studying the combinations which

enable armies to kill with prodigality and to be killed with

parsimony,--fitting ourselves, in short, for manuring cemeteries in the

most approved style.

I was already half a soldier, and meant to make myself perfect in my

profession; not, however, without a firm resolve to quit the army[118]

at the expiration of my three years' service. Twelve months spent in

studying my comrades convinced me that, though some worthy fellows might

be found among them, their society as a whole was uncongenial to my

tastes. I had neither the ambition nor the greed of gain which might

have sapped this resolution; and my persistence during the appointed

time was mainly due to a dislike of seeming fickle. I wanted to gain the

respect of my relatives, whom I hoped to help one day with my counsel,

my credit, and the example of my perseverance.

After eight months spent in the study of fortification, I lost my poor

master. He died suddenly of a fit of spleen a few days after winning his

company in a regiment called Lagarde. This promotion he obtained by

competition; and some insulting words dropped upon the occasion, which

he was unable to resent, caused his mortal illness. Every one deplored

the death of Marchiori; but no one more than I did. His goodness,

sweetness, affability, and friendly patience left a powerful impression

on my memory. Gradually my interest in geometry declined, and I resumed

my former studies with fresh ardour, attending meanwhile to my military

duties, and waiting philosophically till the three years should be over.

VII.

_This Chapter proves that Poetry is not as useless as people

commonly imagine._

I am bound to confess that my weakness for poetry and Italian literature

was great. In the Venetian service, and particularly in Dalmatia, there

were very few indeed who shared these tastes. I wrote and read my

compositions to myself, without seeking the applause of an audience or

boring my neighbours with things they do not care for, as is the wont of

most scribblers.

The secretary of the Generalate, Signor Giovanni Colombo, took some

interest in literature. I may mention, by the way, that he afterwards

rose to high dignity, which involved a calamity for him, sweetened,

however, by a splendid funeral; in other words, he died Grand Chancellor

of our most serene Republic.[119] This man, of gentle spirit and jovial

temper, knowing the epidemic of poetry which possessed the Gozzi family,

encouraged me to read him some of my trifles, and seemed to take

pleasure in listening to them. He owned a small but well-chosen library,

which he courteously allowed me to use. My verses, satirical for the

most part and descriptive of characters--without scurrility indeed,

though based on accurate observation of both sexes--were communicated to

him and Massimo alone.

The town of Zara was bent on testifying its respect for our Provveditore

Generale Quirini by a grand public display. A large hall of wood was

accordingly erected on the open space before the fort, and hung with

fine damask. Tickets of invitation were then distributed to various

persons, who were to compose an Academy upon the day of the solemnity.

Every academician had to recite two compositions in prose or verse, as

he thought fit. The subjects were set forth on the tickets, and were as

follows:--First, Is a prince who preserves, defends, and improves his

dominions in peace, more praiseworthy than one who seeks to extend them

by force of arms? The second was to be a panegyric of the Provveditore

Generale. An old nobleman of Zara, named Giovanni Pellegrini, was chosen

to preside in the Academy and to dispense the invitations. He wore a

black velvet suit and a huge blonde wig, done up into knotted curls, and

possessed a fund of eloquence in the style of Father Casimir

Frescot.[120]

I did not receive an invitation, which proves either that I was an

amateur of poetry unknown to fame, or that Signor Pellegrini, in his

gravity and wisdom, judged me a mere boy, unworthy of consideration in

an enterprise which he treated with true Illyrico-Italian seriousness.

Signor Colombo and my friend Massimo urged me to prepare two

compositions on the published themes; but I reminded them that I had no

right to appear uninvited. Nevertheless, I amused myself by scribbling a

couple of sonnets, which I consigned to the bottom of my pocket. As may

be imagined, I defended peace in the one, and did my best to belaud his

Excellency in the other.

The Provveditore Generale, attended by his officers and by the magnates

of the city, entered the temporary hall, and took his seat upon a rich

fauteuil raised many steps above the ground. A covey of literary

celebrities, collected Heaven knows where, ranged their learned backs

along a row of chairs, which formed a semicircle round him.

Strolling outside the damasked tabernacle, I saw some servants who were

preparing beverages and refreshments with a mighty bustle. I was

thirsty, and thought I should not be committing a crime if I asked one

of them for a lemonade. He replied that express orders had been given

not to quench the thirst of anybody who was not a member of the Academy.

This discourteous rebuff, repeated to the _sitio_ of several officers,

raised a spirit of silent revolt among us. I resolved to put a bold face

on the matter, and to proclaim myself an academician, thinking that the

title of poet might win for me the lemonade which was denied to the

dignity and the weapons of an officer.

This little incident confirmed my opinion of the usefulness of poetry

against the universal judgment which regards it as an inutility. Poetry

stood me in good stead by procuring me a lemonade and saving me from

dying of thirst. Having swallowed the beverage, I proceeded to one of

the seats in the assembly, exciting some surprise among its members, who

were, however, kind enough to tolerate my presence. For three whole

hours the air resounded with long inflated erudite orations and poems

not remarkable for sweetness. A yawn from the General now and then did

honour to the Academy and the academicians. I must in justice say that

some tolerable compositions, superior to what I had expected, struck my

ears. A young abbé in holy orders gushed with poetic eloquence. I have

heard that he is now become a bishop. Who knows whether poetry was not

as serviceable to him in the matter of his mitre, as she was to me in

the matter of my lemonade!

I declaimed my sonnets in their turn; the second of which, by Apollo's

blessing, pleased his Excellency, and consequently was received with

general approval. It established my reputation among the folk of Zara,

and led to a comic scene two days later. The Provveditore Generale was

in the habit of riding in the cool some four or five miles outside the

city; a troop of officers galloped at his heels, and I galloped with

them. While we were amusing ourselves in this way, his Excellency took a

fancy to hear my sonnet over again; for it had now become famous, as

often happens with trifles, which go the round of society upon the

strength of adventitious circumstances. He called me loudly. I put spurs

to my horse, while he, still galloping, ordered me to recite. I do not

think a sonnet was ever declaimed in like manner since the creation of

the world. Galloping after the great man, and almost bursting my lungs

in the effort to make myself heard, with all the trills, gasps,

cadences, semitones, clippings of words, and dissonances, which the

movement of a horse at full speed could occasion, I recited the sonnet

in a storm of sobs and sighs, and blessed my stars when I had pumped

out the fourteenth line. Knowing the temper of the General, who was

haughty and formidable in matters of importance, but sometimes whimsical

in his diversions, I thought at the time that he must have been seeking

a motive for laughter. And indeed, I believe this was the case. Anyhow,

he can only have been deceived if he hoped to laugh more at the affair

than I did. Yet I was rather afraid of becoming a laughing-stock to my

riding-companions also. Foolish fear! These honest fellows, like true

courtiers, vied with each other in congratulating me upon the partiality

of his Excellency and the honour he had done me. They were even jealous

of a burlesque scene in which I played the buffoon, and sorry that they

had not enjoyed the luck of performing it themselves.

VIII.

_Confirmation of a hint I gave in the Second Chapter of these

Memoirs relating to a great danger which I ran._

I related in the second chapter of this book that I once owed my life to

a trick taught me by a jockey. The incident happened during one of our

cavalcades with the Provveditore Generale.

At the hour appointed for riding out, all the officers of the Court sent

their saddles and bridles to the General's stables, and each of us

mounted the animal which happened to be harnessed with his own gear. Now

the Bashaw of Bosnia had presented the governor with a certain Turkish

stallion, finely made, but so vicious that no one liked to back the

brute. One day I noticed that the grooms had saddled this untamable Turk

for me. Who knows what motives determine the acts of stable-boys? I am

not accustomed to be easily dismayed; besides, I had ridden many

dangerous horses in my time, and this was not the minute to show the

white feather before a crowd of soldiers. I leapt upon the animal like

an antique paladin, without looking to see whether the bit and trappings

were in order. Our troops started; but my Bucephalus reared, whirled

round in the air, and bolted toward his stable, which lay below the

ramparts. Pulling and working at the reins had no effect upon the brute;

and when I bent down to discover the cause, I found that the bit had not

been fastened, either through the negligence or the malice of the

grooms.

Rushing at the mercy of this demon through the narrow streets and low

doors of the city, I began to reflect that I was not likely to reach the

stables with my head upon my shoulders. Then I remembered the jockey's

advice, and rising in my stirrups, leaned forwards, and stuck my fingers

into the two eyes of the stallion. Suddenly deprived of sight, and not

knowing whither he was going, he dashed furiously up against a wall,

and fell all of a heap beneath me. I leapt to earth with the agility of

a practised rider, and made the Turk get up; he was trembling like a

leaf, while I with shaky fingers fastened the bit firmly; then I mounted

again, and rejoined my company among the shouts of applause which always

greet dare-devil escapades of this kind. The middle finger of my left

hand had been flayed by striking against the wall. I still bear the scar

of this glorious wound.

IX.

_Little incidents, trifling observations, moral reflections of no

value, gossip which is sure to make the reader yawn._

Our forces had little to occupy them in those provinces, so that my

sonnet in praise of peace exactly fitted. Some interesting incidents,

and several journeys which I undertook, furnished me, however, with

abundant matter for reflection. I shall here indulge myself by setting

down a few observations which occur to my memory.

The regular troops which garrison the fortresses of Dalmatia had been

recalled to Italy, in order to defend the neutrality of Venice during

the wars which then prevailed among her neighbours. In these

circumstances the Senate commissioned our Provveditore Generale to levy

new forces from the subject tribes, not only for maintaining the

military establishment of Dalmatia, but also for drafting a large number

of Morlacchi[121] into Italy. It was a matter of no difficulty to enrol

garrisons for the Illyrian fortresses; but the exportation of the

Morlacchi cost his Excellency the greatest trouble. These ruffianly wild

beasts, wholly destitute of education, are aware that they are subjects

of Venice; yet their firm resolve is to indulge lawless instincts for

robbery and murder as they list, refusing obedience in all things which

do not suit their inclinations. To reason with them is the same as

talking in a whisper to the deaf. They simply resisted the command to

form themselves into a troop and leave their lairs for Italy.

Their chiefs, who were educated men, brave and loyal to their prince,

strained every nerve to carry out these orders. It was found needful to

recall the bandits, who swarm throughout those regions, outlawed for

every sort of crime--robberies, homicides, arson, and such-like acts of

heroism. Bribes too were offered of bounties and advanced pay, in order

to induce the wild and stubborn peasants to cross the seas. I was

present at the review of these Anthropophagi; for indeed they hardly

merited a more civilised title. It took place on the beach of Zara under

the eyes of the Provveditore, with ships under sail, ready for the

embarkation of the conscripts. Pair by pair, they came up and received

their stipend; upon which they expressed their joy by howling out some

barbarous chant, and dancing off together with uncouth gambols to the

transport ships. I revered God's handiwork in these savages while

deploring their bad education, and felt a passing wish to explore the

Eden of eternal beatitude in which the Morlacchi dwell.

It is certain that the Italian cities under our benign government were

more disturbed than guarded by these brutal creatures. At Verona, in

particular, they indulged their appetite for thieving, murdering,

brawling, and defying discipline, without the least regard for orders.

At the close of a few months, they had to be sent back to their caves,

in order to deliver the Veneto from an unbearable incubus. Even at the

outset, their spirit of insubordination let itself be felt. Scarcely had

the transports sailed, when the sight of the Illyrian mountains made

them burn to leap on shore. The seamen did their best to restrain the

unruly crew; but finding that they ran a risk of being cut in pieces,

they finally unbarred the pens before this indomitable flock of rams.

What I am now writing may seem to have little to do with the narrative

of my own life, and may look as though I wished to calumniate the

natives of Dalmatia. The rulers of those territories will, however, bear

me out in the following remarks. I have visited all the fortresses,

many districts, and many villages of the two provinces. In some of the

cities I found well-educated people, trustworthy, cordial, and liberal

in sentiment. In places far removed from the Provveditore Generale's

Court the manners of the population are incredibly rough. All the

peasants may be described as cruel, superstitious, and irrational wild

beasts. In their marriages, their funerals, their games, they preserve

the customs of pagan antiquity. Reading Homer and Virgil gives a perfect

conception of the Morlacchi. They hire a troop of women to lament over

their dead. These professional mourners shriek by turns, relieving one

another when voice and throat have been exhausted by dismal wailings

tuned to a music which inspires terror. One of their pastimes is to

balance a heavy piece of marble on the lifted palm of the right hand,

and hurl it after taking a running jump. The fellow who projects this

missile in a straight line to the greatest distance, wins. One is

reminded of the enormous boulders hurled by Diomede and Turnus.

In their mountain homes the Morlacchi are fine fellows, useful to the

State of Venice on occasions of war with the Turks, their neighbours,

whom they cordially detest. The inhabitants of the coast make bold

seamen, apt for fighting on the waters. Toward Montenegro the tribes

become even more like savages. Families, who have been accustomed for

some generations to die peaceably in their beds or kennels, and cannot

boast of a fair number of murdered ancestors, are looked down upon by

the rest. On the beach outside the city walls of Budua, for which these

men and brothers leave their hills in summer-time to taste the coolness

of sea-breezes, I have witnessed their exploits with the musket and have

seen three corpses stretched upon the sands. A member of one of the

pacific families I have described, being taunted by some comrade, burned

to wipe out the shame of his kindred, and opened a glorious chapter in

their annals by slaughtering and being slaughtered. Fierce battles and

armed encounters between village and village are frequent enough in

those parts. The men of one village who kill a man of the next village,

have no peace unless they pay a hundred sequins or discharge their debt

by the death of one of their own folk. Such is the current tariff, fixed

without consulting their sovereign, among these people, who regard

brutality as justice. I learned much about these traits of human nature

from a village priest of Montenegro, who conversed with me nearly every

day upon the beach at Budua. He talked a strange Italian jargon,

narrated the homicides of his flock with complacency, and let it be

understood that a gun was better suited to his handling than the vessels

of the sanctuary.

The thirst for vengeance is never slaked there. It passes from heir to

heir like an estate in tail. Among the Morlacchi, who are less

bloodthirsty than the Montenegrins, I once saw a woman of some fifty

years fling herself at the feet of the Provveditore Generale, extract a

mummied head from a game-bag, and cast it on the ground before him,

weeping as though her heart would burst, and calling aloud for pity and

justice. For thirty years she had preserved this skull, the skull of her

mother, who had been murdered. The assassins had long ago been brought

to justice, but their punishment was insufficient to lay the demon of

ferocity in this affectionate daughter. Accordingly, she presented

herself indefatigably through a course of thirty years before each of

the successive Provveditori Generali, with the same maternal skull in

her game-bag, with the same shrieks and tears and cries for justice.

I liked seeing the Montenegrin women. They clothe themselves in black

woollen stuffs after a fashion which was certainly not invented by

coquetry. Their hair is parted, and falls over their cheeks on either

shoulder, thickly plastered with butter, so as to form a kind of large

shiny bonnet. They bear the burden of the hard work of the field and

household. The wives are little better than slaves of the men. They

kneel and kiss the men's hands whenever they meet; and yet they seem to

be contented with their lot. Perhaps it would not be amiss if some

Montenegrins came to Italy and changed our fashions with regard to

women; for ours are somewhat too marked in the contrary direction.

Climate renders both the men and women of those provinces extremely

prone to sensuality. Legislators, recognising the impossibility of

controlling lawless lust here, have fixed the fine for seduction of a

girl with violence at a trifle above the sum which a libertine in Venice

bestows on the purveyor of his venal pleasures. At the period of my

residence in Dalmatia, the cities retained something of antique

austerity. This did not, however, prevent the fair sex from conducting

intrigues by stealth. It is possible that, since those days, enlightened

and philosophical Italians, composing the courts of successive

Provveditori Generali, may have removed the last obstacles of prejudice

which gave a spice of danger to love-making.

In Dalmatia the women are handsome, inclining for the most part toward a

masculine robustness; among the Morlacchi of the villages, a Pygmalion

who chose to expend some bushels of sand in polishing the fair sex up,

would obtain fine breathing statues for his pains. These women of

Illyria are less constant in their love than those of Italy; but merit

less blame for their infidelity than the latter. The Illyrian is blinded

and constrained by her fervent temperament, by the climate, by poverty

and credulity; the Italian errs through ambition, avarice, and caprice.

I consider myself qualified for speaking with decision on these points,

as will appear from the chapter I intend to write upon the

love-adventures of my youth.

The land of those provinces is in great measure mountainous, stony, and

barren. There are, however, large districts of plain which might be

extremely fertile. Neither the sterile nor the fertile regions are under

cultivation, but remain for the most part fallow and unfruitful. Onions

and garlic constitute the favourite delicacies of the Morlacchi. The

annual consumption of these vegetables is enormous; and it would not be

difficult to raise a large supply of both at home. They insist, however,

on importing them from Romagna; and when one takes the peasants to task

for this sluggish indifference to their own interests, they reply that

their ancestors never planted onions, and that they have no mind to

change their customs. I often questioned educated inhabitants of those

regions upon the indolence and sloth which prevail in rural Dalmatia.

The answer I received was that nobody, without exposing his life to

peril, could make the Morlacchi do more than they chose to do, or

introduce the least reform into their agriculture. I observed that the

proprietors might always import Italian labour and turn those fertile

plains into a second Apulia. This remark was met with bursts of

laughter; and when I asked the reason, my informants told me that many

Dalmatian gentlemen had brought Italian peasants over, but that a few

days after their arrival, they were found murdered in the fields,

without the assassins having ever been detected. I perceived that my

project was impracticable. Yet I wondered at my friends laughing rather

than shedding tears, when they gave me these convincing answers.

It is a pity that Illyria and Dalmatia cannot be rendered fertile and

profitable to the State. As it is, they cost our treasury more than they

yield, through the expenses incidental to their forming our frontier

against Turkey. But I never made it my business to meddle in affairs of

public policy; and perhaps there are good reasons why these provinces

should be left to their sterility. The opinion I have continually

maintained and published, that we ought to begin by cultivating heads

and hearts, has raised a swarm of hostile projectors against me. Such

men take the truths of the gospel for biting satires, if they detect the

least shadow of opposition to their views regarding personal interest,

personal ambition, or particular prejudice. Yet the real miseries which

I noticed in Dalmatia, the wretched pittance which proprietors draw from

their estates, and the dishonesty of the peasants, suffice to

demonstrate my principles of moral education beyond the possibility of

contradiction.

During my three years in Dalmatia I used to eat superb game and

magnificent fish for a mere nothing; often against my inclination, and

only because the opportunity could not be neglected. When you are in

want of something, you rarely find it there. The fishermen, who live

upon the rocky islands,[122] ply their trade when it pleases them. They

take no thought for fasts, and sell fish for the most part on days when

flesh is eaten. The fish too is brought to market stuffed into sacks. I

could multiply these observations; but let what I have already said

suffice. It is my firm opinion that the economists of our century are at

fault when they propose material improvements and indulge in visions of

opulence and gain, without considering moral education. Wealth is now

regarded by the indigent with eyes of envy and the passions of a pirate;

rich people act as though they knew not what it was to possess wealth,

and make a shameless abuse of it in practice. The one class need to

learn temperance, moderation, and obedience to duty; the other ought to

be trained to reason and subordination. The sages of the present day

entertain very different views from these. In their eyes nothing but

material interest has any value; and instead of deploring bad morals and

manners, they seem to glory in them.

X.

_I am enrolled in the Cavalry of the Republic.--What my military

services amounted to._

Some fifteen months of my three years' service had elapsed, when the

recall of our regular troops and the enrolment of fresh forces in

Dalmatia, which have been described by me above, took place. I have now

to mention that the Provveditore Generale chose this moment for placing

me upon the roll of the Venetian service.

He had me inscribed as a cadet noble[123] of cavalry. Accordingly I

blossomed out into a proper soldier at the age of about eighteen. Signor

Giorgio Barbarigo, the paymaster,[124] a short, fat, honest fellow,

informed me that my commission was registered, and that I was qualified

to draw the salary of thirty-eight lire in good Venetian coin monthly at

his office. The news surprised me, and I went at once to pay my

acknowledgments to his Excellency.

He told me that, nearly all the regular troops having been recalled to

Italy, he saw no prospect of awarding me a higher rank during the term

of his administration, a considerable part of which had already

elapsed. To this he added some ironical remarks to the following

effect--"Although, indeed, I do not think you mean to follow a military

career, having observed from many points in your behaviour that you are

rather inclined to assume the clerical habit." I chose to interpret the

irony of my chief to my advantage, and answered cheerfully that although

I felt little inclination for the military profession, nothing would

ever induce me to become an ecclesiastic; meanwhile I was glad to have

studied human nature as one finds it in an army and in those provinces;

above all things, I recognised the advantage of having been allowed to

serve his Excellency during the three years of his office. I perceived

that this reply had not been unacceptable, and retired after making the

regulation bow.

I discharged my military duties with punctuality; and if my courage had

been put to the test, I feel sure that I should have faced death with

romantic enthusiasm. Yet I cannot boast of having earned my monthly pay

by any particular services. In addition to the daily and nightly routine

of discipline, I attended his Excellency upon visits of inspection by

sea and land to the various fortified places of the territory. When the

plague broke out, I spoiled my shirts and ruffles in fumigating the mass

of correspondence which used to reach the Provveditore Generale from

infected villages. I delivered sentences of arrest by word of mouth to

Venetian patricians, noblemen, and officers--always much against the

grain. I lay, together with several of my comrades, under arrest on a

false charge of malpractice, and owed my liberation after a few hours to

the intercession of a gentle lady of the Veniero family. While

enumerating these martial deserts, I ought not perhaps to include the

sufferings endured upon my journeys, whether riding the worst of nags

under a fierce sun and sleeping in jackboots upon the open fields, or

rocking at sea all night aboard some galley on a coil of cable, half

devoured by myriads of bugs. Great as these sufferings were, I must

admit that I endured greater in the disorderly garrison amusements which

I joined of my own accord. Some account of these I intend to give in

another chapter.

It will be observed that my services to the State were but slender. Yet

many men have gained promotion or a pension on the strength of nothing

better. And now I think upon it, I will mention one notable achievement,

which, though it be not martial, might have put some other soldier

laddie in the way of rising to his colonelcy. I hardly expect to be

believed, but I am telling the truth, when I affirm that I acquired

renown throughout Dalmatia as a _soubrette_ in improvised comedy upon

the boards of a theatre.

XI.

_My theatrical talents; athletic exercises; imprudences of all

kinds; dangers to which I exposed myself; with reflections which

are always frivolous._

All through the carnival, tragedies, dramas and comedies used to be

performed by amateurs in the Court-theatre, for the amusement of his

Excellency, the patricians on the civil staff, officers of the garrison,

and the good folk of Zara.[125]

Our troop was composed exclusively of male actors, as is the case in

general with unprofessional theatres; and young men, dressed like women,

played the female parts. I was selected to represent the _soubrette_.

On weighing the tastes of my audience, and taking into account the

nation for whom I was to act, I invented a wholly new kind of character.

I had myself dressed like a Dalmatian servant-girl, with hair divided at

the temples, and done up with rose-coloured ribbands. My costume

corresponded at all points to that of a coquettish housemaid of

Sebenico. I discarded the Tuscan dialect, which is spoken by the

_soubrettes_ of our theatres in Italy, and having learned Illyrian

pretty well by this time, I devised for my particular use a jargon of

Venetian, altering the pronunciation and interspersing various Illyrian

phrases. This produced a very humorous effect, and lent itself both in

dialogue and improvised soliloquies to the expression of sentiments in

keeping with my part. Courage and loquacity were always at my service;

after studying the plot of a comedy, which had to be performed

extempore, I never found my readiness of wit at fault. Accordingly, the

new and unexpected type of the _soubrette_ which I invented was welcomed

with enthusiasm alike by Italians and natives. It created a _furore_ in

my audience, and won for me universal sympathy.

My sketches of Dalmatian manners studied from the life, my satirical

repartees to the mistresses I served, my piquant sallies upon incidents

which formed the talk of town and garrison, my ostentatious modesty, my

snubs to impertinent admirers, my reflections and my lamentations, made

the Provveditore Generale and the whole audience declare with tears of

laughter running down their cheeks that I was the wittiest and most

humourous _soubrette_ who ever trod the boards of a theatre. They often

bespoke improvised comedies, in order to enjoy the amusing chatter and

Illyrico-Italian jargon of Luce; for I ought to add that I adopted this

name, which is the same as our Lucia, instead of Smeraldina, Corallina,

or Colombina.

Ladies in plenty were eager to know the young man who played Luce with

such diablerie and ready wit upon the stage. But when they met him face

to face in society, his reserve and taciturnity were so unlike the

sprightliness of his assumed character, that they fairly lost their

temper. Now that I am well stricken in years, I recognise that their

disappointment was anything but a misfortune for me. The conduct of

those few who concealed their feelings and pretended that my

self-control and seriousness had charms to win their heart, justifies

this moral reflection. Meanwhile my talent for comedy relieved me of all

military duties so long as carnival lasted. Each year, at the

commencement of this season, the Provveditore Generale sent for me, and

affably requested me to devote my time and energy to his amusement in

the Court-theatre.

During summer he set the fashion of pallone-playing, which had hitherto

been unknown at Zara.[126] I had made myself an adept in this game at

our Friulian country-seat. Accordingly his Excellency urged me to

display my accomplishments for the entertainment of the public. In a

short time my seductive costume of fine white linen, with a waistband of

black satin and fluttering ribands, cut a prominent figure among the

competitors in this noble sport. My turn for study, literary talent,

grave demeanour, and seriousness of character made far less impression

on the fair sex than my successes on the stage and the pallone-ground.

It was these and these alone which put my chastity to the test and

conquered it, as will appear in the chapter on my love-adventures. I

might here indulge in a digression hardly flattering to women. But I

prefer to congratulate them on their emancipation from the ideality of

Petrarch's age. Now they are at liberty to float voluptuously on the

tide of tender and electrical emotions, in company with youths congenial

to their instincts, who have abandoned tedious studies for occupations

hardly more exacting than a game at ball or the impersonation of a

waiting-maid.

The truth of history compels me to touch upon some incidents which put

my boyish courage to the proof; yet I must confess that my deeds of

daring in Dalmatia were nothing better than mad and brainless acts of

folly. While recording them, I dare hardly hope--although I should

sincerely like to do so--that they will prove useful to parents by

exposing the kind of life which young men lead on foreign service, or to

sons by pointing out the errors of my ways.

We had no war on hand, and our valour was obliged to find a vent for

itself. I should have passed for a poltroon if I had not joined the

amusements and adventures of my comrades. These consisted for the most

part in frantic gambling, serenading houses which returned our serenades

with gunshots, entertaining women of the town at balls and

supper-parties, brawling in the streets at night, disguising ourselves

to frighten people, and breaking the slumbers of the good folk of the

towns and fortresses where the Court happened to be fixed. I remember

that one summer night in the city of Spalato, eight or ten of us dressed

up for the latter purpose. Each man put on a couple of shirts, thrusting

his legs through the sleeves of one and his arms through the other, with

a big white bonnet on his head and a pole in his hand. Thus attired, we

scoured the town like spectres from the other world, knocking at doors,

uttering horrid shrieks to rouse the population, and striking terror

into the breasts of women and children. Now it is the custom there to

leave the stable-doors open, because of the great heat at night.

Accordingly we undid the halters of some fifty horses, and drove them

before us, clattering our staves upon the pavement. The din was

infernal. Folk leaped from their beds, thinking that the Turks had made

a raid upon the town, and crying from their windows: "Who the devil are

you? Who goes there? Who goes there?" They screamed to the deaf, while

we went clattering and driving on. In the morning the whole city was in

an uproar, discussing last night's prodigy and skurrying about to catch

the frightened animals.

My guitar-playing accomplishments made me indispensable in these

dare-devil escapades of hair-brained boys, which by some miracle never

seemed to reach the Provveditore Generale's ears. Had they done so, I

suppose they would have been punished, as they deserved; for he was a

man who knew how to maintain discipline. The Italians and Illyrians do

not dwell together without a certain half-concealed antipathy. This

leads to frequent trials of strength and valour, in which the Italians

are most to blame. They insult the natives and pick quarrels with a

people famous for their daring and ferocity. The courage displayed in

maintaining these quarrels and facing their attendant dangers deserves

the name of folly rather than of bravery. After stating this truth, to

which indeed I was never blind, I dare affirm that no one met

musket-shots and menaces with a bolder front than I did. Physicians

versed in the anatomy of the human frame may be able to explain my

constitutional imperturbability under all circumstances of peril. I am

content to account for it as sheer stupidity.

We were at Budua, toward Montenegro, my friend Massimo and I. In this

city women are guarded with a watchful jealousy of which Italians have

no notion; while homicides occur with facility and frequency. Massimo

began a gallant correspondence from the window of our lodging with a

girl who was our neighbour. She belonged to one of the noblest families

of the place, and was engaged to a gentleman of the city. Nevertheless,

she returned my friend's advances with the eagerness of one who has been

kept in slavery. I must add that the future bridegroom obtained some

inkling of this aërial intrigue. He was a rough Illyrian of no breeding.

One morning this fellow opened conversation with us officers in a little

square, where we were seated together on stone benches. With much

circumlocution and a kind of awkward sprightliness, addressing himself

to Massimo, and smiling half-sourly and half-sillily, he expressed his

own stupid contempt for Italian customs with regard to women. The long

and the short of this involved discourse was simply that all the men in

Italy were cuckolds, and all the women no better than they should be.

Massimo took care not to emphasise the meaning of the fellow's

innuendoes, which would have called for blood and vengeance; but

contented himself with bluntly defending our social institutions. In the

course of his argument he proved that the barbarity and tyranny of men

toward women, who are always sharp of wit and full of cleverness in

every climate, caused more of immorality and intrigue in Illyria than

freedom of intercourse between the sexes caused in Italy. To my mind,

he spoke what was partly true and partly false; for it cannot be

maintained that the facilitation and toleration of licentiousness remove

it from our midst. The Illyrian, however, lacked eloquence, and felt ill

at ease in carrying on a wordy warfare. So he did not attempt to confute

Massimo; but rolled his head and knit his brows, and told him that he

might soon be taught at his own cost how badly the Italians conduct

themselves in this respect.

Nothing more was wanted in the way of challenge to set us Italians on

our mettle. A trifle of this sort turned us at once into knights-errant,

championing our nation's cause among half-savages, who murder men with

the same indifference as they kill quails or fig-peckers. Massimo turned

to me and said that, when night fell, I must take my guitar and follow

him. Obeying the rash romantic impulse of my heart, I replied that

nothing should prevent me from attending on him. The other Italians who

were present at this interview, with more prudence than ourselves,

affected to hear nothing.

It happened that a young Florentine named Steffano Torri was at this

time clerk in the secretary's office of the Generalato. He played female

parts in our comedies and tragedies with much ability, and sang like a

nightingale. In order to give our nocturnal enterprise the character of

a serenade--a thing quite alien to the customs of that district--Massimo

invited this poor lad to warble, without informing him of what, had

happened. He was only too glad to let his fine voice be heard; and being

besides an obliging creature, he gave his promise on the spot.

[Illustration: IL CAPITANO (1668)

_Illustrating the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, or Impromptu Comedy._]

Night came. It was September; the season warm, and the moon shining

brightly. We girt our swords, stuck a brace of pistols in our belts, and

took up our station in the principal street, which was long and

straight, beneath the windows of Massimo's Dulcinea. Torri sent melody

after melody forth into the silent air, while I twanged my

guitar-strings for a good hour's space. Suddenly a window, belonging to

the mansion we were honouring with our duet, flew violently open. A

great black head appeared, from which there issued a hoarse voice like

that of Charon in Dante's Inferno. "What insolence!" it uttered with a

bad Italian accent. We knew that the huge skull was consecrate, and

belonged to a certain Canon, uncle of the girl. But something more was

needed than the big bovine voice of an ecclesiastic to disturb our

tranquillity. Torri, however, being a civilian and no soldier, began to

be aware that his melodious airs were out of place. The prudence which

is born of fear made him reflect upon the situation, and he asked leave

to retire. We persuaded him to stay awhile, pointing out that the street

was public, that our amusement was lawful and innocuous, and that it

conferred an honour on our nation. He resumed his singing; but from this

moment the melodies had a certain quaver in them, which the composer had

not calculated. The first assault by the Canon was sustained and

repulsed; for after roaring out "What insolence!" three or four times,

he shut the window in our faces with a crash.

The second attack upon our obstinacy was something very different and

far more formidable than a priest's voice, however horrible. It

effectually shut the mouth up of our young musician. By the light of the

moon we could discern six men at a distance entering the street with six

lowered and gleaming muskets; the cowls of their cloaks concealed their

faces, and they advanced at a slow pace toward us. At this apparition

our musician took to his heels, and did not stop running till he reached

his lodging. Massimo and I stood our ground like Orlando and Rodomonte.

I went on playing; my friend, to keep the singing up, howled out some

rustic ditties in a bold voice, which was however, I am bound to say,

even less agreeable than the Canon's. His discords were enough to cast

eternal shame upon Italian music; and if the young lady heard them, they

must have frightened her out of her wits instead of giving her the

pleasure of a serenade.

Observing our determination to stand firm, the six cowled men advanced

to within twenty paces. We heard the click of their six gunlocks, as

they cocked them, ready to give fire. At this point our intrepidity

deserved no other name than madness; it called for the lancet,

hellebore, strait-jackets, a good drubbing. Without budging an inch, we

raised our pistols at the muffled band. They looked at us, we looked at

them, for good two minutes. Then they made their minds up to defile

past, leaving us at a little distance, but always keeping their eyes

fixed with a haughty defiance on our faces. We, on our part, made our

minds up to let them pass, returning no less haughty glances. Perhaps

they wished to give us time for repentance, or for wholesome

reflections, which should make us quit our post. Anyhow, they moved

onward till they reached the end of the street, when once again they

turned and faced us.

Little did those cowled and mantled fellows know the length and breadth

of our stupidity! We recommenced our duet with a more hideous din than

ever. They retraced their steps, and advanced steadily toward us. But

when they found the pair of little fighting-cocks still standing with

raised pistols on the watch, they judged it wiser to pursue their course

and disappear. The removal of the Court from Budua, which took place one

day after this memorable exploit, probably saved us from being shot down

by an ambuscade. I also imagine that the men only wished to frighten us

away. Possibly our expected departure from the city, or else respect for

our staff-uniform, restrained their fingers on the trigger. Such

considerations had certainly more weight with those fierce natives than

the insane bravado of two insects armed with pistols. Anyhow, I have

always regarded our courage in this danger as fool-hardiness rather than

magnanimity.

I could relate an infinity of such adventures, in all of which we risked

our lives on some puerile point of honour, or in pursuit of some

impertinence which called for castigation. One night at Spalato our

serenading party was welcomed with a storm of heavy stones, which made

us skip like kids, but could not drive us from our post. We were paying

this compliment to a handsome girl of Ragusa, the mistress of one of the

chief nobles of the city, and we maintained our station for the honour

of Italy, with skulls unbroken, till the day rose.

In the society of unemployed and lazy officers, a young man may be said

to have worked miracles who preserves the good principles implanted in

him at home. Unless he conforms to the tone and fashion of his comrades,

he is sure to be derided and despised. If he does conform, he is likely

to lose substance, health and reputation at cards, with women, or by

drinking. Besides this, he constantly risks life and limb in the

so-called pastimes I have just described.

I am able to boast without exaggeration that I never played for high

stakes, that I never surrendered myself to debauchery, that I preserved

the sound principles of my home education, and yet that I was popular

with all my comrades, owing to the clubbable and fraternal attitude

which I assumed at some risk, it is true, yet always with the firm

determination to leave a good character behind me when my term of

service ended.

XII.

_Shows how a young Cadet of Cavalry is capable of executing a

military stratagem._

Having described the dangers to which my system of conduct in the army

exposed me, I ought in justice to myself to show that I was able on

occasion to reconcile our absurd code of honour with prudence and

diplomacy. With this object I will relate an incident, which is neither

more nor less insignificant than the other events of my life.

The city of Zara is traversed by a main street of considerable length,

extending from the piazza of San Simeone to the gate called Porta

Marina. Several lanes and alleys, leading downwards from the ramparts on

the side toward the sea, debouch into this principal artery. It so

happened that some of the officers, wishing to traverse one of these

lanes on their way to the promenade upon the ramparts, had been

intercepted by a man muffled in a mantle, who levelled an eloquent

enormous blunderbuss at their persons, and forced them to change their

route. This act of violence ought to have been reported to the

Provveditore Generale, and he would have speedily restored order and

freedom of passage. Our military code of honour, however, forbade

recourse to justice as an act of cowardice; albeit some of my comrades

found it not derogatory to their courage to recoil before a blunderbuss.

My readers ought to be informed that a girl of the people, called

Tonina, one of the loveliest women whom eyes of man have ever seen,

lived in this lane. She had multitudes of admirers; and the cozening

tricks she used to wheedle and entice a pack of simpletons, made her no

better than any other cheap and venal beauty. Yet she contrived to sell

her favours by the sequin. A gentleman, whom I shall mention lower down,

was madly in love with this little baggage. Wishing to keep the treasure

to himself, he adopted a truly Dalmatian mode of testifying his

devotion, and stood sentinel in her alley. On two consecutive evenings

the passage was barred; we talked of nothing else in the ante-chamber of

the General, and laid plans how to reassert our honour. A number of

officers agreed to face the blunderbuss; I received an invitation to

join the band; and acting on my system of good-fellowship, I readily

consented.

Our discussion took place in the ante-chamber; silence was enjoined; we

settled that each of the conspirators should wear a white ribband on his

hat, and that three hours after nightfall we should assemble under arms

at our accustomed mustering-place. This was a billiard-saloon, whence

we were to sally forth to the assault of Budua.

An Illyrian nobleman, Signor Simeone C----, of handsome person,

honourable carriage, and a resolute temper, which inspired even soldiers

with respect, although he held no military grade, was sitting in a

corner of the ante-chamber, half-asleep, and apparently inattentive to

our project. I knew him to be frank and genial, and he had often

professed sentiments of sincere friendship for myself. After our scheme

had been concerted, I passed into the reception-room of the palace. He

followed, and opened a conversation on indifferent topics, in the course

of which he drew me aside, changed his tone, and began to speak as

follows:--